Backup strategy for Laptop

[jardster]

So, I will be replacing my wife's 2019 iMac with a new MBA, because she really wants to be able to walk around the house and use the computer in different places. I am going to put a monitor where the iMac is currently and have a dock with all of the things she would want if she wants to sit at a bigger screen (all connected via USBC).

I have the same setup at home and work for my MBP, and I have a backup drive connected to the dock, but I am good about ejecting the drive each time I unplug my computer... I know she will not do that.

So, what would be the best strategy for backup? She currently has a HD attached and uses Time Machine, which has always worked well for us.

Thanks!

[Gareth]

You could use a network drive (NAS, single or multi-drive), or it could be a drive attached to your computer, but then it would only back-up when your computer is also hooked up. Or use a cloud service, such as Backblaze. Or if all documents are kept in a cloud service like iCloud, you may not need to worry about it as much... but always best to have multiple copies and in different places anyway.

[raz]

NAS here. It’s big enough to hold Time Machine backups for all our Macs.

[jardster]

Any NAS drives that play well with TM backups?

[bhaveshp]

For my wife, I moved everything to iCloud Drive. Her documents folder lives there. All her photos are on iCloud. Though she also uses Google docs/Gmail extensively so that's also on another cloud service.

Bonus, she loves having all her docs available to her on the phone if needed.

So other than the Apple One family plan subscription, there is nothing else to think about. It's worked well enough for the past 4 years.

Edit to add - She has the same large screen connected to her laptop for when she wants a desktop experience.

[raz]

jardster wrote:
Any NAS drives that play well with TM backups?

QNAP. It was trivial to set up. I put 2 4TB drives and RAID them together.

[clay]

raz wrote:
[quote=jardster]
Any NAS drives that play well with TM backups?

QNAP. It was trivial to set up. I put 2 4TB drives and RAID them together. synology can do it as well

[bazookaman]

I back up the wife's laptop with Backblaze for a remote backup. I also bought a Time Capsule on eBay, put in a bigger drive, and set it up on my network so her laptop backs up to that locally. Plus, I have an external drive that I use to make a clone whenever we get around to hooking it up.

[macphanatic]

clay wrote:
[quote=raz]
[quote=jardster]
Any NAS drives that play well with TM backups?

QNAP. It was trivial to set up. I put 2 4TB drives and RAID them together. synology can do it as well
Synology has iOS apps for accessing files, backing up photos, etc. Not sure what QNAP has.

[sekker]

Time Machine is really flaky in my experience.

I’d recommend an iCloud account to backup all documents and move on with your life.